Now Playing September 2017

Metroid: Samus Returns – post coming soon, probably. I don’t know how much I have to say. This is pretty good. I think the counter system is really fiddly and fighting in general in this game is tedious, but exploring alien worlds never gets old.

Mighty Gunvolt Burst –

I kind of bounced over to this as I finished Metroid and blew through the parts I had left, which was most of the game, in two nights. This is the game that I think people wanted Mighty No 9 to be. It is a very solidly made Mega Man clone. It is also nothing more than a Mega Man clone. It does have the somewhat interesting customizable weapons, but the mechanics of it seem to exist only to force players to continually replay levels. That isn’t really a bad thing, but it makes for some front loaded difficulty. But other than that one wrinkle, it is just Mega Man. Again, that really isn’t a bad thing; the NES Mega Man games are all excellent. But I felt that Mighty No 9, flaws aside, was trying to be something a little more. Just a little. It was an evolution of Mega Man, while Mighty Gunvolt Burst is a bit of a reversion. That doesn’t change the fact that Burst is a more enjoyable game to play. It is well worth the price of admission.

Ongoing

The Last Guardian – I played this for about 10 minutes. I have nothing to say yet, but I expect to finish it before too long.

Legend of Legacy –

This is a blip, but the announcement that The Alliance Alive would be making it stateside prompted me to allow myself to be convinced to give this another go. I abandoned it two years ago because the game is inscrutable. It is still inscrutable. Level ups happen at random. Skills are learned at random. It is all random. The game goes out of its way to not tell how things work. I might stick it out, see if at some point it clicks, but so far it is just a neat experiment in negative space bullshit; that instead of filling a game with bullshit, it creates bullshit by absence of anything else. At least it looks and sounds nice.

Upcoming

Yakuza 0 – I promised my brother I would get through The Last Guardian as fast as possible, so I started that back up after finishing Persona 5. As soon as it is done, this goes back in.

Terranigma – I didn’t start this in September. Honestly, other than spending one weekend getting through the rest of Persona 5 and about half an hour before bed each night playing Metroid I barely played any games. I’ve got a fall break coming in October and will likely have some time to get to a game or two, with Terranigma near the top of my list.

Etrian Odyssey V – Its coming. The demo was great, every preceding game was great. This will likely be my obsession for the rest of the year.

Lady Layton – I hope I can beat this in the 10 or so days between its release and EO5. I’ve never not got right on a Layton game, this will be the same. But I really don’t have the time these days.